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I find it curious that cons seem to be doing a booming business even while we hear about how people only want to connect to others remotely and avoid face to face interaction. So just out of curiosity, a poll.
Participants: 24
How many fan cons (of any size) have you been to?
None
5 (20.8%)
1
6 (25.0%)
2-3
3 (12.5%)
4-6
4 (16.7%)
7-10
1 (4.2%)
11-15
1 (4.2%)
16 - 20
2 (8.3%) *
21 or more
2 (8.3%)
How many different fandoms have the cons been for? (Count single verse cons as one fandom)
1
4 (23.5%)
2-3
3 (17.6%)
4-6
1 (5.9%) *
7-10
0 (0.0%)
11+
0 (0.0%)
They've all or mostly been fanworks/fan centered cons
2 (11.8%)
They've all or mostly been media centered (such as TV, gaming, anime) cons
2 (11.8%)
They've all or mostly been multifandom cons (of any type)
5 (29.4%)
At what age did you attend your first con?
Under 10
0 (0.0%)
11-18
8 (42.1%) *
19-25
6 (31.6%)
26-31
4 (21.1%)
32-40
1 (5.3%)
41-50
0 (0.0%)
Over 50
0 (0.0%)
How recently have you attended a con?
In the last 2 years
7 (36.8%) *
Between 3-5 years ago
4 (21.1%)
Between 6-10 years ago
2 (10.5%)
Between 10 -20 years ago
5 (26.3%)
Over 20 years ago
1 (5.3%)
When you attend cons have you
Gone by yourself
9 (47.4%) *
Gone with/met up with friends
15 (78.9%) *
Gone with a significant other
7 (36.8%) *
Gone with family
5 (26.3%) *
Gone with a group/club
0 (0.0%)
How would rank your experiences at cons overall?
Mean: 7.28 Median: 7 Std. Dev 2.05
Mostly disappointing
1
0 (0.0%)
2
1 (5.6%)
3
0 (0.0%)
4
1 (5.6%)
5
0 (0.0%)
6
3 (16.7%) *
7
6 (33.3%)
8
1 (5.6%)
9
3 (16.7%)
10
All of them were extremely rewarding
3 (16.7%)
What holds you back from going to cons/going to more cons?
Cost
15 (65.2%)
Available time
13 (56.5%)
Amount of travel involved
15 (65.2%) *
Too crowded
6 (26.1%) *
Too small
0 (0.0%)
Security concerns
1 (4.3%)
Accessibility concerns
2 (8.7%)
Lack of cons for fandoms I like
4 (17.4%) *
Lack of guests/panels that interest me
4 (17.4%) *
Don't want to go alone
5 (21.7%)
Too commercial
5 (21.7%) *
Not professional/reliable enough
1 (4.3%)
Just don't like the con scene
2 (8.7%)
Bad past experiences
0 (0.0%)
I don't find them welcoming
4 (17.4%) *
Anxiety concerns
5 (21.7%)
No guarantee of seeing what I want to see
3 (13.0%) *
Something else I'll discuss in comments
2 (8.7%)
Comments: The General Hospital fandom that I've been lurking/sporatically posting in was talking about a fandom convention in Burbank, California. And I thought, no way in hell. In fact, if I was going to do that I'd have done it with the Buffy fandom back in 2003, when I was unemployed and living off my savings account. And even then, if I had the money, I'd have not done it -- the whole thing scared me. Big crowds of people, long lines, eek. Sounds like hell. Saw the Carrie Fisher/Debbie Reynolds documentary and there's a bit with her at a con signing various things and speaking, and I thought, yes, hell. I've considered Comic Con more than once -- but the whole idea of going somewhere alone in costume is beyond me. I can't. It does not sound like fun. It sounds like hell. I do not understand why people pay to do this. And the idea of standing up and asking a famous person questions? Ack. Or getting them to sign a picture? Eeek.
I'm not really interested in meeting actors, and I suspect the Buffy people have already answered most of the good interview/panel questions about the show. I think I'd love a fanworks/fan-centered con, but I don't know if I can justify spending that much on travel etc. When there's something in Europe, I'm conflicted. US-side, just nope.
I would have to travel incredible distances to see the conventions that I'd like to attend. We have two cons a year that I attend, and that's great, they're good cons - multistream, but to even fly to Adelaide takes 3 hours. Incidentally, these are not big commercial cons -- and tend to the literary but are overall very diverse, tv, movies, boardgames, LARPS, rpgs... They're run by volunteers, and you pretty much don't have to pay for signatures or stuff like that. Once you're in the door you can just wander around and see what takes your interest. I could handle going to more stuff like that.
Cons are such a focus of hope and disappointment for me! I've been to a few 'official' cons, for SPN and Firefly respectively, and in both cases I ended up finding it really hard to talk to people and I also found the whole 'meet the celebrities' thing absolutely excruciating. I have zero interest in getting autographs and whatnot, and I don't think the stars necessarily have much interesting to say (I always feel like they're too circumscribed especially when it comes to questions about things like race and gender). Fan-run cons have worked out better for me - I'm more interested in talking with other fans about the thing we love. But the thing is beforehand I always imagine it's going to be this amazing community experience and then in practice I am horribly shy and too scared to talk to anyone and it's all very awkward. So I've sort of come to the place of thinking it's just not worth it for me, because the fun to awkward ratio so rarely works out positive.
I was actually surprised to realize how many cons I had been to once I started counting the different kinds. The experiences were all quite different but I found I preferred to be an audience member in a hall to most anything else, rather like seeing a live theater performance. Of course the issue is that most celebrities don't do a particularly good job of entertaining a crowd as themselves -- it's not what they're trained for after all. But I find that it produces the best experience because then the strangeness of the event lessens if it's all thought of as just another type of performance.
I went to a convention years ago in London with James, David, Amy, and Juliet from Buffy/Angel, and it was a fun experience in a lot of ways, but I think that I’m too nervous for those sorts of scenes. I met up with the group of people from a Buffy board where I knew most of them pretty well/recognised their posting board names, but I don’t think that any of them really recognised me or considered me a part of the board group. It was a fun experience in many ways though, it was probably just me being horribly awkward when it came to actually interesting with people from online forums *shrugs* And I don’t know if this is just me lol, but I also really struggled with following what the guests were saying at the panels because I was finding it really hard to clearly hear what they were saying.
I feel like it would help a lot if cons did mixers that were organized, so that it wasn't like you were forced to make conversation. Instead people could be sorted into groups with a moderator to organize interaction with things like going around having every person answer a set of questions or doing some games or other kinds of activities together.